Games in Google+: fun that fits your schedule — My family has a games closet. Inside you'll find a few decks of cards, two decades' worth of board games and a Twister mat for those times when we're feeling limber. Playing games is a great way for us to spend quality time with each other …

Stepping Onto the Google+ Platform — Welcome to the Google+ Platform blog! Only 6 weeks ago we launched the Google+ project to fix sharing on the Web. Since then, tens of thousands of you have expressed an overwhelming desire to build applications for Google+ — we can't wait to help you out.

Making Games Better — For those who enjoy games on Facebook, we're launching new features to make it easier to find new games and play with friends. — A new game ticker — When you're playing games, you'll now see a separate stream of your friends' game activity, scores and achievements in a ticker.

Microsoft Windows Phone 7 Mango landing 1 September — Microsoft will roll out its latest phone operating system, currently codenamed Mango, to Windows Phone 7 users starting on 1 September, Pocket-lint has exclusively learnt. Therefore, that will be the date that the company will start its fightback against Android and the iPhone.

Privacy, Advertising, and Putting Members First — Over the last few days, some of you may have read stories or blog posts about some new forms of advertising, called “social ads"[1], that we are testing on our site. Since the launch, we've also been gathering feedback from our users and we hear you loud and clear.

‘Angry Birds’ Maker Seeks $1.2B Valuation — Rovio Entertainment Oy, the Finnish creator of the “Angry Birds” mobile-phone game, is in talks to receive funding that would value the company at about $1.2 billion, two people with knowledge of the discussions said.

The patent system isn't broken — we are — There is a fundamental problem with patents in the United States. — It is us. — By that I mean all of us: the companies and people who directly interact with the patent system, the media that reports on those interactions …

Apple Focused on Advancing iOS Metaphors to a Higher Level — On August 11, 2011, the US Patent & Trademark Office published a patent application from Apple that reveals one of the possible next chapters for Apple's iOS. Apple's patent application focuses on advancing iOS metaphors to a higher level.

T-Mobile to Start Charging Overages on Low-End Data Plan — T-Mobile pioneered the notion of throttling data speeds rather than charging overages for those who use up their allotted data amount in a given month. Now the company has decided it needs to start assessing overage charges on its lowest-end data plan.

Heello is Twitter for Pretending — It's easy to write off Heello as a Twitter clone. Created by the founder of Twitpic, the shameless knockoff looks and behaves like a stripped-down version of Twitter, down to the [tweets] pings, [followers] listeners, and [retweets] echos.

Slicing an Apple — How much of an iPhone is made by Samsung? — APPLE doesn't make the iPhone itself. It neither manufactures the components nor assembles them into a finished product. The components come from a variety of suppliers and the assembly is done by Foxconn, a Taiwanese firm, at its plant in Shenzhen, China.